Domination and submission aren’t confined to the bedroom; they’re woven into the fabric of everyday life. Given how power surrounds us, why wouldn’t it shape our erotic selves? It’s no surprise to me just how many people have latent submissive desires. I see this desire as a beautiful thing. It’s a desire to take an everyday feeling and place it in a safe container for study, experimentation, and even pleasure. Yet at the same time, most people don’t have anywhere to put this desire. Yes, faux-leather handcuffs and harnesses have made their way to mainstream retailers. However, in my experience, most clients are still pushed into largely vanilla sexual routines, mostly defined by their gender.
This push and pull between what we really want, and how safe we are to express it, is what creates a space for this world. Clients are looking for somewhere to explore their desires; we’re sex workers, ready to create that experience. Understanding this motivation behind newbie clients contacting sex workers for domination helps us understand what they need.
When I meet vanilla newbies, they may not have had any intimate experience at all, but they still generally have an idea of how it will go. As doms, we’re in the unusual position of meeting newbies who have very specific ideas, but no idea how to talk about or action them. I have had so many clients who have said, “Just do anything to me, you’re the domme! Oh but not that, no not like that …”
Ask your new submissive plenty of questions
So, the first thing we need to do with newbie clients is ask good questions. Create a respectful, welcoming, and insightful space for them to share their vulnerable desires. We can start with the basics, such as: their past experiences, how long they want to play for, and what they do and don’t want to do.
Then delve deeper. Open ended questions encourage clients to think beyond fetish categories, and flesh out their kinks from nebulous to tangible. Answers to these questions also give us a wealth of information about the psychological and energetic aspect of the dynamic we’ll be creating. Some of my favourite questions to ask are: “What can’t you feel in your everyday life?” “What do you want to feel with me?” “What do you want to remember from this experience?”
Show your sub how to surrender and submit
Introducing newbies to submission also involves teaching them what submission is. Sometimes, newbies will respond to these questions with long paragraphs detailing exactly what they want. In their excitement, it can start to feel like they’re demanding services. On the other end of the spectrum, some clients can be so reticent to share that their silence controls the conversation. Either way, it can start to feel like they’re topping from the bottom. In my experience, this happens when a client wants the sensation of submitting, but fears the vulnerability comes alongside it.
Talk about boundaries with your submissive
The subtle part of being a dom is asserting your own boundaries, and your strength, to introduce a new sub to the concept of yielding to you. Don’t be afraid to take control in a situation like this. After all, the essence of submission is a paradox—someone is choosing to give up their control to you. Everyone responds to this paradox differently. Some doms do not tolerate their submissives dictating what happens in a session at all. As a softer domme, I like to know in detail what a sub wants, but still ensure I am delivering it according to my will.
Discuss safety with your sub
It goes without saying that we need to introduce newbies to concepts such as BDSM specific consent, safe words, sub drop, and aftercare. I don’t sit my clients down and go through the acronyms: SSC (Safe Sane & Consensual), RACK (Risk Aware Consensual Kink), PRICK (Personal Responsibility, Informed Consensual Kink), etc. I think that would be overwhelming. I simply check my clients understanding, before filling in the gaps. I also emphasise that my clients need to be responsible for gauging, and communicating, their own boundaries. I’ve found that last one to be important, because newbies sometimes have unrealistic expectations of their dommes. Reminding them that this is a co-creation has helped me avoid burnout.
Get to know the set up
It’s also useful to introduce clients to different aspects of the scene we’ll be playing with. For example, if we’re in a bedroom and I’m going to be pegging my client, I’ll show them each toy I have. If we’re in a dungeon, I’ll give them a brief tour. Even if they’re not interested in certain aspects, this helps to acclimatise them, and makes the whole thing less scary. Unless, of course, being intimidated by the set up is part of the scene! (More in my article How to Plan a Kink Scene)
Explore your unique dom/me/sub dynamic
Lastly, I like to introduce clients to submission in the spirit of experimentation. This is a fun space for them to try out their desires. While doms are here to create that space, we can’t know everything right away. Honing kink takes time. I firmly believe we shouldn’t put pressure on ourselves to precisely execute someone’s sexual fantasy like robots. Getting into a flow may take repeated tries, breaking scenes, laughing, and other acts of experimentation—which is the fun, connected part of kink.
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